According to the brochure: “participants, academics from various disciplines, will discuss a new definition of humanity, overcoming classical anthropocentrism with its conception of man as the measure of all things. Post-humanity, one of the key concepts of the project, will look for a new place for the human in the modern world, inside of natural and subject relations, discovering human in things never previously recognized as human.

The symposium, who has been accompanied by the exhibition “Elective Affinities”, curated by Viktor Misiano, also at the National Center for Contemporary Arts, was split in two parts/days. The first one, “The Human Condition in an other-than-human world”, moderated by Madina Tlostanova, was more concerned about political and social issues:

“In the first day of the symposium theorists and artists discuss from different perspectives The Human Condition in today’s increasingly unsettled world marked by the ever-growing critique of anthropocentrism and Eurocentrism. Under scrutiny is the pluriversality and complexity of the new world, which are often better understood and metaphorically represented in contemporary art than in the majority of the dominant academic paradigms which cannot catch up with the rapidly changing reality. We also analyze the borders and coalitions between the human, the natural and the animal, as seen in the critical discourses on biotechnologies, trans* studies, capitalist modernity/coloniality, affect theory, etc. Contemporary concepts of Western antihumanism are problematized from the position of non-Western forms of other humanism (as a humanism of the other), as a reiteration of the importance of humanist premises that have never been fulfilled in relation to liminal subjects of modernity seen as “problems”, whose bodies act as powerful markers of difference, assimilation, rejection, resistance and re-existence. In our presentations, discussions and the round table wrapping up the first day of our symposium, we try to offer some answers to the questions of where and how the humankind – as a multitude of plural and mobile entities – existentially exists in our difference. Are we able to imagine and put to life some post-utopian and post-dystopic scenarios for our complex world and its inhabitants?”

The second part/day, “Living Topologies / Nonhuman Agencies”, curated by Dmitry Bulatov, was more focused on life, living and non-living, human possible inheritance, Artificial Life, Artificial Intelligence and Synthetic Life, Bioarts, and on the relationships between art and science:

“The principle question of this session may be formulated concisely in the following way: “How can simple localized actions create truly complex patterns?” Our intention is to consider this problem, using the examples that have emerged as a product of technological activities of the modern man. Among such agents are programmable matter, symbiotic forms and hybrids, “semiliving” entities and other manifestations of life existing “at the edge of chaos” and disorder. All these nonhuman subjects, interacting with one another, engender a complex systemic whole – a new sphere of existence, wherein the role of humanity is not of primary concern. How then can the effects of such self-organization be analyzed? How can this borderline state be located, beyond which the improbable manifestations of new technologies become our daily reality? What role can art and philosophy play in making sense of this new world and the orientation of our values within it? The participants in our session, “Living Typologies / Nonhuman Agencies” – philosophers, sociologists, art and new media theoreticians – answer these and other questions.”

There was a large participation of public and a good discussion on the topics presented and on the questions that were raised.

Apart the lovely time I passed discussing, talking and chatting with the other participants, with the perfect assistance of Olga Demina, on Saturday evening I was invited with some colleagues to a beautiful private dinner in the apartment of Daria Parkhomenko, founding director and curator of “Laboratoria”, an Art and Science space in Moscow. And on Sunday I had even the time for a short but intense visit to Moscow with Richard Doyle and Jens Hauser, under the superbe guidance of Yulia Mironova.

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About me

I am a scholar in the media studies and the relationships among arts, sciences, technology and culture. I have been professor at the Universities of Rome “La Sapienza”, Bologna, Florence, SUPSI – University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Urbino, and at the Fine Arts Academies of Carrara, NABA Milan, LABA Rimini and Quasar Rome. Currently I am a teacher at the Fine Arts Academy of Urbino and at the University of Udine (Dept. of Mathematics, Computer and Physics Sciences). From 2008 to 2013 I have been a supervisor, and from 2013 to 2018 I have been the Director of Studies of the T-Node Ph.D. Research Program of the Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth.
I have internationally published more than 350 texts, essays and papers in books, magazines and conference proceedings. I have organized exhibitions, symposia, managed projects and participated to conferences worldwide.
I published the books "Realtà del virtuale. Rappresentazioni tecnologiche, comunicazione, arte" (Reality of the virtual. Techno-representations, communication, art), 1993 (also as an eBook), on virtual technologies and the relationships between culture and sensorial representations;" Il corpo tecnologico. L’influenza delle tecnologie sul corpo e sulle sue facoltà" (The technological body. Technologies’ influence on the body and its faculties), 1994, on the impact of technologies on the human body; "Arte e tecnologie. Comunicazione estetica e tecnoscienze" (Art and technologies. Aesthetic communication and technosciences), 1996 (also as an eBook), about art, sciences and technologies. I co-curated the books "The New and History", 2018, about the relationships among the “new”, innovation, history and cultural heritage, as well as the proceedings of art*science/Leonardo 50, an International conference he co-organized; and "Arte e complessità" (Art and Complexity), 2018, about the art forms dealing with complexity.
In 1994 I founded and directed the first Italian online journal, "NetMagazine/MagNet", on the relationships between arts and technologies. In 2000 I started "Noema" (https://noemalab.eu), an online magazine and a series of projects about the interrelations and influences among culture, arts, sciences and technologies. Currently I am curating the three-year research project (2018-20) art*science - Art & Climate Change (https://artscience.online).